Overnight Tech: Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook | Google, Facebook, Twitter decline to back ad disclosure bill | Facebook exec grilled on data practices

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of Americans attended a march last November organized by a Russian group that used social media to interfere in the 2016 election.

The demonstration in New York City, which took place a few days after the election, appears to be the largest and most successful known effort to date pulled off by Russian-linked groups intent on using social media platforms to influence American politics.

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Sixteen thousand Facebook users said that they planned to attend a Trump protest on Nov. 12, 2016, organized by the Facebook page for BlackMattersUS, a Russian-linked group that sought to capitalize on racial tensions between black and white Americans. The event was shared with 61,000 users.

As many as 5,000 to 10,000 protesters actually convened at Manhattan’s Union Square. They then marched to Trump Tower, according to media reports at the time.

The BlackMattersUS-organized rally took advantage of outrage among groups on the left following President Trump’s victory on Nov. 8 to galvanize support for its event. The group’s protest was the fourth consecutive anti-Trump rally in New York following election night, and one of many across the country.   

“Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda!” reads the Facebook event page for the rally. “Divided is the reason we just fell. We must unite despite our differences to stop HATE from ruling the land.”

While the focus has been on Russian efforts ahead of the election, the BlackMatters rally days after Trump’s victory shows that Russian-linked social media influence efforts continued after the election.

The BlackMatters organizing group was connected to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll farm” with ties to the Kremlin, according to a recent investigation by the Russian Magazine RBC. Facebook has identified the Internet Research Agency as the group responsible for purchasing 3,000 political ads on Facebook’s platform and operating 470 accounts that appear to have attempted to influence the perspectives of Americans during the 2016 elections.

Read more here.

 

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TECH COMPANIES WON’T COMMIT TO HONEST ADS ACT: Facebook, Twitter and Google on Tuesday all declined to endorse a bill intended to bring more transparency to online political ads on their platforms.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who introduced the Honest Ads Act earlier this month, pressed representatives from the three companies during a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing.

“My first question is simply will you support our bill?” Klobuchar asked.

The companies all responded by saying that they were willing to work with lawmakers on legislation that brings more transparency to the ad process, but none of the representatives were willing to endorse the current bill.

The top lawyers from the three companies were testifying on Russian efforts to use their platforms to interfere in the 2016 election. The hearing was the first of three, with the companies testifying on Wednesday before the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Read more here.

 

INDUSTRY OUTLINES ITS OWN PRINCIPLES FOR DISCLOSURES: The Internet Association, a trade group representing internet platforms like Facebook and Google, meanwhile outlined principles for what the industry would like to see in online ad disclosure legislation.

The wish list includes oversight from the Federal Election Commission and a set of uniform rules applied to all websites equally.

“Internet Association members are committed to working with policymakers and other stakeholders on legislation that will improve transparency and stop bad actors while protecting privacy, free speech, and internet-enabled political debate,” Michael Beckerman, the group’s CEO, said in a statement.

Read more here.

 

SENATOR GRILLS FACEBOOK ON DATA PRACTICES: Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) grilled a Facebook executive during a hearing on Tuesday about the company’s data collection practices, asking for assurances that it isn’t abusing its information about users.

“I think you do enormous good, but your power sometimes scares me,” Kennedy told representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter on Tuesday.

Turning his attention to Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, Kennedy asked whether the platform could hypothetically provide personal information about Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was chairing the hearing, or about any individual user.

“Do you have a profile on me?” Kennedy asked.

Read more here.

 

FRANKEN LASHES OUT AT FACEBOOK: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) also grilled a Facebook executive on Tuesday, asking why the company wasn’t able to discover foreign election interference when it had sold political ads to accounts that paid in Russian rubles.

Franken zeroed in on Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on online Russian disinformation campaigns.  

“People are buying ads on your platform with rubles,” Franken said as his voice rose. “They’re political ads. You put billions of data points together all the time — that’s what I hear that these platforms do.”

Stretch admitted that the company was policing advertisers for other abuses and that it failed to connect the dots on the two variables.

“Senator, it’s a signal we should have been alert to, and in hindsight it’s one we missed,” Stretch said.

But despite repeated attempts by Franken, Stretch would not commit that Facebook would stop accepting foreign currencies for U.S. political ads.

Read more here.

 

GOP CHAIRMAN DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM TECH COMPANIES ON ENERGY ADS: The House Science, Space and Technology Committee sent follow-up letters to social media companies citing an investigation into Russia’s use of their platforms to manipulate the energy market and urging cooperation.

“Congress has an obligation to bring transparency to social media when their content impacts important areas of public policy,” wrote Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in a letter dated Tuesday. 

The letter comes after Buzzfeed last week reported that the Russian campaign to destabilize the United States included a fake Native American advocacy account on Instagram that protested the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Smith has been pushing for more information from tech companies on Russian ads on energy issues like the pipeline.

Read more here.

 

ON TAP:
Nvidia will host a technology conference on artificial intelligence at 8:00 a.m.

The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on Russian election meddling in which top lawyers from Facebook, Twitter and Google will testify at 9:30 a.m.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on securing credit data at 10:00 a.m.

The House Energy and Commerce will hold a hearing on FirstNet, the broadband first responder network, at 10:15 a.m. 

The House Intelligence Committee will hold its own hearing on Russian election meddling with top lawyers from Google, Facebook and Twitter at 2:00 p.m.

 

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